Author: Alex Williams

Sugar CRM is launching a new user interface as part of Sugar 6. It comes with a focus on what is becoming a prerequisite: an emphasis on speed, search and deeper integration with third party applications and mobile devices.

The speed issue is one that SaaS providers always seek to mitigate as they want the service to seem as responsive as if it were worked on the desktop.

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To do this, Sugar CRM is providing a revamped set up that when completed is supposed to be optimized for speed and designed for the experience that comes with using a social network.

It includes a new, global search, another effort to optimize the experience for the end user. Search is becoming increasingly critical as more data is available for integration with third party apps. Sugar CRM will strengthen its search with an open-source engine such as Lucene.

SugarCRM is paying close attention to the user experience, knowing it is a key to acceptance among users of CRM environments.

SugarCRM also includes native application support for the iPhone Android and the Blackberry. The company has also introduced a native app for the iPad.

Application integration is the hallmark of the emerging social CRM application. SugarCRM fits with LinkedIn, Hoovers and Jigsaw through its Cloud Connectors service, which connects third-party data service. SugarCRM also works with Sugar Plug-Ins for Microsoft Outlook, Word and Excel.

But can’t this all become a bit overwhelming? All this data flowing into one CRM environment means that the customer needs to think carefully how to organize, discover and share what comes into the network.

That’s why it makes sense that a search and potentially analytics component will become standards for services like SugarCRM. It’s also why SugarCRM has a certain advantage. Open-source platforms will thrive in the data deluge to come. Third-party services become critical as components that make sense of internal and external information.

It’s just a matter of how those applications are applied so customers can get relevant information that they need for the opportunity at hand.

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What is not a service these days? We start to wonder when we hear the latest incantation: “virtualization as a service.” But after closer look, perhaps it makes sense, especially considering now that VMware and Salesforce.com are working on a partnership and joint product dubbed VMForce.

So, we ask you: “What does virtualization as a service really mean?

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Last week, we asked: “How does the iPad affect cloud computing?”

Once again, seeing from our responses, it’s virtualization that plays a key role in the way cloud computing evolves. Plus, people agree that the tablet is the next step to the embedded computer on any object.

For Salesforce.com, a partnership with VMware could mean it gets a foot inside the data center with the capability to provide its technology in a private cloud environment, leveraging its installed base.

For VMware, the potential is to take a big step into the cloud, packaging its virtual infrastructure with Zimbra and the technology suite provided by Salesforce.com.

So, what do you think?

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SAS introduced a social media analytics program today that will compete against the major metrics players such as Radian 6 and WebTrends. The new service shows once again how blogs and social networks are deeply influencing marketing, customer support and product groups within the enterprise.

The SAS Social Media analytics service is different than many of the social technologies we look at in our coverage. It’s a hosted service that SAS builds for the client. The client develops the parameters for what they want to analyze. Rules are established that then server as the framework. Results are viewed through a web page that SAS sets up for the client.

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Most of the services we see are delivered as a SaaS solution. For example, Salesforce.com went live recently with Chatter that integrates Twitter, Facebook and other services. But SAS is a company with analytics at its core. It will take about a year for the company to build up the IP, the data, for specific market verticals. After that time, down, the road, it’s a service that could be delivered from the cloud.

But the learning behavior may be its key differentiator. Mark Chaves, product manager, SAS, said the service can be optimized to learn, based on inputs. For example, the sentiment analysis can be changed to reflect what has been learned. With most services, the sentiment analysis parameters are defined within the application and can not be altered.

The service reminds us a lot of what we see emerging in data analytics for the enterprise. The SAS service imports data from internal and external sources. It can archive and analyze more than two years of information from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, discussion forums, blogs and other sources. It is designed to provide a form of predictive analytics that can be applied, for example, to develop marketing strategies such as brand development.

Some of the other features include:

• Analyzes structured and unstructured data from internal and external sources.
• Quantifies influence, forecast future volume of social media conversations, and then predict their impact on the business.
• Multiple language support.
• Web-based dashboard.

SAS Social Media Analytics platform shows how deep social technologies are filtering into the enterprise. It’s important to identify data from social networks as additional data points that when integrated can provide insights, for instance, into campaigns and CRM environments.

The SAS offering reflects the DNA of the company. The focus is on data analytics. That seems like a logical approach. Social networks are producing data at an exponential rate. The SAS offering reflects how it is becoming more of a science to analyze the information from these networks and how its outcomes affect the entire enterprise.

Disclosure: SAS paid for a train ticket and hotel room for Alex Williams to attend the the SAS Users Conference in Seattle.]

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Google Docs now includes co-editing features, similar to Google Wave. The feature is one of several new updates to Google Docs that includes faster online access to documents and better formatting.

The new features provide capabilities that enhance Google Docs on platforms such as the desktop or laptop. But the stark difference between apps and traditionally crafted web pages is evident as Google seeks the best way to present Google Docs on mobile devices.

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The challenge is particularly vexing for the iPad. Google Docs does not run on the iPad due to the customized Safari browser that Apple created for the new device. Google Docs runs on a browser designed for the desktop, not the iPhone. Google focuses on using a single platform for its applications. To dive into the murky water of mobile apps becomes an investment decision that Google is still weighing.

Instead, Google Docs will continue to be available solely through the mobile web browser on Android, BlackBerry and the iPhone with the capability to view Google documents and presentations. Spreadsheets may be edited on the available mobile platforms.

The new features for Google Docs have a lot to do with speed and rendering, which allows for the co-editing capabilities. People may see what each other type as they work within documents, spread sheets or using the drawing feature. Up to 50 people may work simultaneously on a document with integrated instant messaging.

The goal, in many respects, is to bridge people to the cloud by providing a high performance platform that is as responsive as a desktop environment.

Commenting in the margin, real-time spell-check and the ability to float images anywhere in the document are new features that come from faster capabilities within the application.

Spreadsheet features include drag-and-drop columns, auto-completion and formula editing bar.

Drawing is one of the coolest new features. Drawings may be co-edited, downloaded into standard formats and copy and pasted into Google Docs.

But the new features mean there has to be tradeoffs. Google Docs will drop offline capabilities, no longer available starting May 3. Offline access to GMail and Google Calendar will continue to be available.

Google is at a cross roads. They will have to decide about how to move their applications deeper into a mobile environment. HTML 5 offers a similar experience to mobile apps. But native apps are so well-suited to a mobile environment. Just look at scheduling apps. The progression to find the route, schedule, stops and times can all be presented in simple, logical order. HTML 5 can offer a rich user experience, too, but apps are native and have a future as bright as traditional HTML has had over these past several years.

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Cloud computing is affecting the evolution of content management systems and the manners in which data becomes a service.

Business services are evolving as cloud computing forces people to think more about how information is organized and shared. At the consumer level, Apple iTunes will be replaced by cloud computing services, often referred to as online music storage lockers. People have become accustomed to using iTunes but as people get access to more data, they will find new ways to organize information. And the kids will realize how the information can be shared.

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At the business level, cloud computing is having a profound effect in a number of markets. In the mapping world it’s leading to new forms of content management systems that use data for specific niche purposes.

Services like WeoGeo offer new forms of geo-spatial, content management systems and marketplaces that offer deep repositories of data, like a giant map case in the sky. It’s in some ways like a content management system and marketplace for map makers, an age old craft now in a different dimension.

Foe example, WeoGeo offers a map library and a marketplace, designed specifically for surveyors, engineers, architects, geoscientists, and cartographers. It offers both the library and the marketplace as data services, petabytes of data stored in the cloud. All of its services are available via RESTful web services. Is that a big deal? We kind of think so. Web oriented architectures require the data to be browser compatible. With RESTful, companies can create new kinds of mashups baked into a new generation of content management systems that correlate to specific communities. That’s the evolution taking place. Applications that can share data through API’s that provide the capability to organize new sets of data and shared in a variety of manners.

The service is in contrast to what Google and Microsoft offer. Both of these companies use map data to enhance their services. They serve as ways to lock in data that they use for search and advertising. SimpleGeo is a similar service to WeoGeo but it uses geodata to makes applications more location aware. ESRI represents the old guard of the industry and is the market leader in mapping software. It’s a proprietary platform.

But the real future for the mapping world is in the cloud. It serves as a place that data can be served and built upon. It’s also the place where markets will develop. It’s like a data fabric that the map makers use to sell their works. It’s a community made of developers.

And that’s how communities evolve. They trade between themselves, thus creating the demand. It’s similar to how the publishing market evolved several hundred years ago. Book makers traded books. As more books were published, the market grew.

We are in the same place with data as a service. Google and Microsoft will not and can not control the entire market. The foundation for geo market services will strengthen as its developer/small business community evolves. Its these small businesses that represent the future.

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The enterprise may now have what they have wanted for the iPhone. But now they have to decide if such a locked down device is control they want secede to Apple

We expect that Apple’s tight control over its hardware, software and content will not stop an enterprise from purchasing the device. But it may cause some to pause and consider a smartphone with the Android OS – built on an open-source model with many of the same enterprise features that will come with the iPhone OS 4.

In our post last week, we spoke with Ken Westin, CEO of ActiveTrak, who said the iPhone OS lacked multi-processing, SSL VPN, an and relied too much on MobileMe, making it troublesome for IT administrators. ActiveTrak allows for devices to be tracked if lost or stolen.

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It looks like Apple checked most of the items off Westin’s list except for one caveat. Multitasking work on the iPhone 3GS, its latest device but not the iPhone 3G.

That actually may help sell a lot more phones into the enterprise. IT will want the multitasking feature, primarily for security purposes. As Westin points out, it’s the multitasking that makes it possible for the ActiveTrak service to run in the background.

With multitasking, ActiveTrak would not have to do any social engineering as is required wit the current OS. Currently, ActiveTrak is disguised as a Safari icon on the iPhone. The application activates when the user accesses the Internet from the iPhone. If it is not accessed, the device can not be tracked.

But the Android has had multitasking capability since its inception so in this respect, it is not revolutionary for the iPhone to get such a feature.

As for control, could an enterprise lose access to iPhone apps? This is not likely but as we have seen with Flash, Apple will make uniform decisions about what content it allows. The Android offers an open marketplace that has none of the restrictions that Apple imposes.

Here’s what is included in the iPhone OS 4:

Multitasking

ReadWriteWeb’s Mike Melanson says the purists may not consider it multitasking but for most uses, it is close enough. He writes that multitasking, “for the most part, is handled by a double click on the home button, which pulls up a screen showing icons of all the apps currently hanging out in the background. Some, like Skype or Pandora, will actually be running, while others will simply be in a frozen state.”

Is that enough for an app like ActiveTrak? He said that from what he has seen so far, yes, it will suffice. Bit it is not something that puts it ahead of the Android.

SSL VPN

SSL VPN is now supported in iPhone OS 4. Apps are expected from Juniper and Cisco that will support SSL VPN, which allows for better way to securely access the enterprise from a browser across any device.

Microsoft Exchange

Email on the iPhone is now up to speed with the rest of the market. The iPhone allows a user to set up multiple Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync accounts. It also works with Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. Multiple email accounts may be pulled into one account or accounts may be viewed separately.

Data Wiping and Mobile Admin Control

IT administrators may now configure devices to update wirelessly. The device may be monitored to abide by corporate policies. It may be locked down if lost or the data may be wiped.

Wireless App Configuration

This would allow the control over what apps someone places on their device. According to Apple: “The iPhone OS 4 enables enterprises to securely host and wirelessly distribute in-house apps to employees over Wi-Fi and 3G. Apps can be updated without requiring users to connect to their computers.

One thing we don’t hear mentioned much is the lock down of the iPhone. Is it a major issue? It does mix into the whole scope of the app platform. So, we argue that it does. But, overall, we have to agree with the NextWeb. The difference between the iPhone and the Android in the enterprise might be best considered a draw:

“Wireless delivery of applications, great data encryption, Exchange Server support. When you’re in a business world, with today’s technology, these things become expected. These are no longer seen as value-added features of any OS, mobile or otherwise. Now, in fairness, Android OS is not at the top of the Enterprise game. But neither is Apple. For years, RIM has set the standard. Even today, other companies have a lot of work to do in order to catch up. I have to call this an even draw.”

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Cloud computing creates enough disruptions for small businesses that it seems almost folly when we hear some of the stories we do.

We heard one story about an IT department that said that the company could not afford to have more people accessing the Internet. Yes, the Internet is too expensive for small business. Maybe it’s time to scrap the dial up?

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Cloud computing is one of those classic disruptions to a business that over time becomes part of the fabric for a how a company operates.

You can either get into it now and be a leader or wait and join with the rest of the masses. That’s not to say going with the masses is a bad thing. Every company has a different timeline.

But take this into consideration:

Think you can’t take on the big companies in your market? Think again. A study by K2 Advisory finds that adoption rates by smaller organizations of public cloud and SaaS services from vendors such as Amazon and Google will outpace the adoption rate of larger enterprises by a factor of two.

That means while the big guys are scratching their heads, the smaller, smarter players can potentially make inroads into markets where they could not go before. Why? It’s just easier to scale and integrate on a global scale.

“In five years’ time the provision of IT to mid-sized and smaller businesses (of less than 1000 employees) will be quite distinct in terms of cloud adoption from enterprises,” said Kathy Ring of K2. ” ‘Indeed, it could be argued that small and mid-sized business use of cloud computing will enhance their agility and their ability to bounce back more quickly from the recession of 2009/10. Many Western enterprises, however, will continue to find that their IT systems are increasingly sclerotic, constrained by client-server ERP systems.’ “

Cloud services leverage the massive server capacity available. It’s elastic in nature, meaning it can scale up or down, based on demand for the service. A small business can expense the cost as opposed to purchasing an IT asset such as a server.

It’s a big reason why online services for small business have grown at such a clip. For example, online conteny management systems are now available that can be used as an alternative to making investments in services that require substantial IT investments. It has meant that small startups are competing in much larger markets against very big competitors. Box.net, for example, just received $15 million in funding. Their target: Microsoft Sharepoint.

Of course, technology companies provide the ability to scale in different ways than other types of services. But there are plenty of examples for how this movement is taking hold. Really, any company can leverage the cloud to take advantage of its storage and application infrastructure.

So, where do you start? Start by trying out some services to get a feeling for what you can do:

Google Docs. See how it compares to Microsoft Office.

Skype. Explore how you can use Internet-based services to replace voice and video.

SugarSync. Get access to your desktop from anywhere, any time. Services like SugarSync offer the capability to access your file and desktop from anywhere you may be:

Small businesses may feel overwhelmed by cloud computing. But it’s worth the effort in experimenting. There is a small window that is open now. Companies that can take advantage of it may be best positioned to compete against their larger counterparts.

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It’s worth noting that the cloud certainly has borders. It’s the one reality that proves the cloud computing movement may seem at times abstract and vague but in the end it is the international politics of our world that creates some of the deepest issues for its place in the world markets.

According to InformationWeek, The 451 Group presented a webcast that showed cloud computing adoption trails in Europe and Asia. About 57% op spending is in the United States with 31% in Europe and 12% in Asia. The numbers get even more polarized when you only look at the adoption for infrastructure as a service. A full 93% of spending is in the United States with 6% in Europe and 1% in the United States.

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The low numbers almost makes it seem like some artificial effect is in play. And in some ways it really is. A lack of European data centers services by the large providers affects adoption. Rackspace, Terremark and Savvis are the primary companies looking to develop a presence in Europe. But they need to build data centers before they can have any real presence there.

According to the 451 Group, 99 percent of European businesses are either small or mid-sized organizations. And they have plenty of choices from telecommunications providers.

But here is an interesting twist. InformationWeek:

One obstacle to both sides is the U.S. Patriot Act, which gives the U.S. government a right to demand data if it defines conditions as being an emergency or necessary to homeland security, and a measure that contradicts that power when the data is of European origin, the European Union’s Data Protection Directive. In 2006, the European Court of Justice ruled that an agreement negotiated with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was too broadly construed and violated the EU’s directive. The agreement was about sharing data on European airline passengers headed for the U.S. The data sought by the U.S. was too broadly construed and violated the EU’s directive, the court said.

“Both measures could prevent establishing a cloud without borders,” said 451’s William Fellows. Cloud advocates say services established via an Internet data center should be accessible by people around the world, and they are in the case of Google search or Facebook apps. But when it comes to sensitive data, national borders still prevail because of conflicting laws.”

The issue is apparent now with Google’s issues with the Chinese government. It’s not the technology that is making cloud computing an issue. It’s international politics.

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A Google executive told an audience of managers from several federal agencies yesterday that they should expect Google Buzz to be in their enterprise GMail accounts within the next few months.

This is the first time sine the launch that we have heard a public statement about Google Buzz entering the enterprise. It comes as Google Buzz asked users once again again to double-check that Buzz is set up just the way they like it.

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Google Buzz is built into GMail, providing a real-time activity stream. At its launch, The service stood considerable criticism from people who came to find that they were inadvertently exposing their email accounts to the public. Opting out was not entirely clear. In response, Google updated Google Buzz to make it easier to opt-out but for many it did not go far enough. Criticism continued and within four days has changed its policies, replacing opt-out features, most of all, replacing auto-following with suggestions for people to follow.

Yesterday, according to The Hill, Mike Bradshaw, Google’s head of federal sales said at a cloud computing event in Washington, DC that the issues with Google Buzz have been corrected: “We got a bit of a ding by the press,” he said. “Fortunately we were able to correct it and in four days changed the policies.”

That’s one way to look at it. He portrays the incident as a public relations issue, not as a flaw deep in the product that raises considerable privacy concerns.

Privacy issues are of primary concern to federal agencies that have been concerned about how information can be protected in a cloud computing environment. The issue has caused some hesitation and slowing in adoption.

We expect that Google will need to push its education efforts into high gear for Google Buzz. Customers will have to be convinced that their enterprise GMail accounts are entirely protected from any inadvertent transparencies that could expose a person’s account.

Opting out will just not fly in the enterprise.

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Dion Hinchcliffe announced this morning the sales of his successful practice to the Dachis Group, one of the largest services organizations in the field, focused on building social technologies in the enterprise.

In recent months, the advent of social technologies catered to the enterprise has shifted into high gear. Hinchcliffe said in an interview yesterday that the opportunities presented to Hinchcliffe & Company have scaled in the past few months.The Dachis Group will help meet those opportunities.

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The Dachis Group, founded by Jeff Dachis in 2008, is well-known for its emphasis as a services firm focused on social technologies for large enterprise organizations. It is funded by Austin Ventures. The company has grown considerably in the past year, acquiring Headshift Technologies last September.

Hinchcliffe is undoubtedly one of the most well respected voices in Enterprise 2.0. He is the Enterprise 2.0 blog for ZDnet. He brings a unique understanding that comes from years as an information architect. He came early to the social Web movement in the enterprise. He picked up early on the concept of web-oriented architectures and what it means for the transformation of the enterprise.

Hinchcliffe had this to say today about the shift in our society and the enterprise:

“To the latter point, it’s almost a truism that focus is something that is hard to achieve in any organization on the emerging edge of business and technology. When Web 2.0 arrived on the scene in the middle of the decade, it was clear that something momentous was happening in our personal lives, but it was almost too large a change for most of us to easily digest. Now, much the same transformation has begun in our businesses. Back then I decided to immediately create a company to bring these ideas — and changes that accompany them — in the most positive possible way to enterprises around the world and I haven’t looked back.

The outcome was something most of you are now quite familiar with in the subject matter we explore in depth in our blogs, workshops, books, articles, speeches, and consulting practice: social software, cloud computing, open APIs, innovation, crowdsourcing, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Social CRM, and more. It is now increasingly clear that these ideas are all part of a macro set of trends and concepts that are changing the way we structure and operate our organizations today. Thus, as I stated in the press release, I believe that Social Business Design captures these ideas in a comprehensive approach that will be an essential foundation of next-generation enterprises.”

The significance of this news comes down to what we all are seeing happen in the enterprise. Social technologies represent a cultural shift in how we view our world. The changes to come in the next five years will be profound. Hinchcliffe and the Dachis Group will play an important role in that transformation.

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Rackspace launched an iPad app to manage a cloud infrastructure, one of the first to offer such a service.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) does not have apps for the iPhone nor the iPad platforms. It has historically not offered mobile apps for AWS.

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You can still access AWS on the iPad through the Safari browser. But is the experience as rich as what you would have as on a native app?

Mike Mayo built Rackspace’s iPad app. He says it is the functionality that gives apps their value. It’s evident in both consumer and enterprise apps. Users get a rich user experience. You can see it in the Racskpace cloud app.

Mayo humorously says that the app offers administrators “a life.” Meaning that you can go out for dinner without the anxiety of not knowing how the infrastructure is faring. If you see a problem, you can reboot, directly from the device.

The app does have a new service not available on the iPhone version. You can delete your servers on it. Mayo kept the feature off the iPhone due to the concern that it’s such a small device, easily left at a bar or restaurant. He feels people are less likely to leave an iPad due to its size. We’re not so sure. People leave their laptops behind all the time.

We could go into details about the app and what it offers but Robert Scoble’s video does a good job of that.

Mayo is currently developing a Rackpace cloud app for the Android.

Disclosure: RackSpace is a sponsor of ReadWriteCloud’s parent site, ReadWriteWeb.

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It is fairly evident that the iPad and cloud computing are deeply tied to each other. A selection of storage and cloud management apps now are available on the iPad. So, we want to know: “How will the iPad affect cloud computing?”

But before we get to that question, let’s take a look at last week’s poll. We asked: “Is Oracle a Cloud company?”

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We had 125 people reply. In total, 68 respondents said: “None of the above. Oracle, like IBM and Microsoft, is a hybrid, with the majority of its revenue still with its on-premise offerings.” Forty-four people agreed that Oracle missed the boat and won’t leave its franchise.

This week we want to know:

It’s evident that there are a number of new issues that bring cloud computing into the discussion. Eddie Dumbill says it is Apple’s lack of integration that is the biggest issue. It does not support MobileMe:

“However, the iPad is no more advanced than the iPhone in its cloud integration. I would have loved to have switched on the iPad, keyed in my MobileMe login, and automatically had my email, browser bookmarks, calendar and contacts set up for me, as well as the ability to load in ebooks through my iDisk, and have my photo galleries available.

Instead I was forced through the painfully overloaded iTunes application, and had to tether my device via USB to get all of my content on it. Setting things up was a crazy dance involving configuration in both iTunes and in the iPad’s settings panel. To make matters worse, the iPad doesn’t want to charge over USB. This means I need to plug it in twice: once to the charger, and then somewhere else to sync. Decent cloud access would have mitigated this a little.”

What are your thoughts?

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The news may be about the iPad this weekend but it’s the cloud that will hover hot over Apple by the Fall and in many respects challenge its hegemony over how we store and share music and video.

According to CNET, that’s about the time of year that it looks like Apple will unveil its cloud-based music service.

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In the meantime we are seeing a number of storage services emerge for the iPad that could be used for people to store their music and other media. Yesterday, we looked at the Box.net app. Dropbox has an iPad app as does SugarSync.

And then there are the forces that are not tethered to the iPad at all.

Last week, Canonical started a public beta for its cloud-based music service.

Most cloud-based services allow you to store your own music in the cloud. With Canonical, you purchase your music through its music store that syncs with your device and your own personal cloud. That means you control your

Apple appears to be looking at a similar strategy, allowing consumers to store music and movies in the cloud, albeit the media being that from the major labels and even more so, the studios. Will they go for it? Well, a long time ago, perhaps, but with the options available, the studios, have far more possibilities to pursue.

But how can the Apple strategy work in a cloud built on open-source? Apple’s Fair Play digital rights management software is intended to keep music, movies and other entertainment locked down so it can not be shared. It’s in contrast to the open-nature of cloud computing that we see with services that allow for online storage lockers. People will find ways to store and organize data in the way they wish. That makes sense for a number of reasons:

• People have media on multiple devices. Keeping it in the cloud makes it easier to access.
• Syncing to the cloud makes sense. Cables? Dongles? That’s old school. You can update a file in the cloud and see that same update on your smart phone.
• If a number of people have their own personal clouds than that means we can share, right? Yes it does!

It’s that last point that must give Apple a bit of a chill. For years, iTunes seemed like the only option. But Apple has locked down its hardware, software and the content. In league with the labels and studios, Apple has used DRM to get its leverage at the expense of us all.

Will that strategy continue to work? Well, it’s going to take a while but all these storage providers know that those home videos can bloat a hard drive pretty fast.

Or maybe just maybe, Steve will put the screws back in the iPad, give us the schematics and let us all see what we really can do with that tablet.

He’ll then thank Cory Doctorow for waking him up and sure enough we’ll all wonder if we had just fallen into a hot tub time machine.

Discuss

The cloud computing story for the iPad will fill out as more applications become available. The first few applications we’ve seen give a glimpse into how the cloud plays a role in the iPad’s future, especially with collaborative services such as online meetings.

Cisco is launching a WebEx client for the iPad. Cisco is one of the more experienced companies for developing cloud-based products through its hosted service. It’s beefing up that strategy, too, as mobile plays a more significant role in the workplace, especially as video is concerned.

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Cisco is building a number of data centers throughout world, with the latest rolling out today, said Grace Kim of Cisco. The network gives Cisco flexibility in developing its client software for multiple platforms. WebEx is available on most smart phones through the browser. The app is available on the iPhone and the iPad. It is available on the Blackberry. WebEx does not as of yet have an app for the Android,

With the data centers in place, Cisco gets some flexibility in how it structures pricing for clients, which it can extend to new platforms. A catalyst for that strategy may be the iPad itself.

The iPad’s form factor allows customers to view meetings on a screen that is simply much bigger. That’s where the iPad has value. That, too, comments on how cloud computing becomes more important. The iPad makes video more logical to use. It’s not available yet on the WebEx app. Cisco developed the app in the 50 days since Apple announced the iPad. Like a lot of other apps. we notice that WebEx is lacking some features. Cisco, though, is fully focused on video as a focal part of its collaboration strategy. You can expect that we will see video as part of the iPad app in future versions.

The iPad is the right device for meeting collaboration. Far more so, we would say, than the iPhone. Customers will take advantage of this, fueling the need for more data centers that are designed for tasks that require elasticity, a key tenant of the cloud computing movement. Will Cisco offer more elasticity in its pricing models? Online conferencing has its roots in the ancient history of cloud computing. That’s a time that dates back more than 10 years ago, (chuckle), when we first saw the glimpses of a per use model. Kim said they are always exploring new pricing structures which you can see in new products such as its hybrid offering that allows a large enterprise to use an on-premise client for data critical sessions and the hosted service for meetings that require lesser levels of security.

The Cisco WebEx app for the iPad may be used to join meetings but at this time not to initiate. The scheduling is done online through WebEx. People will usually get an email to access the meeting. The link in the email will open the application for them to join. The iPad application comes with VOIP. The iPhone does not have VOIP technology. The iPad app includes chat. Usage is set by IT policy. It includes user authenticated SSL encryption.

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The App store for iPad is live and it includes a number of apps for business use.It’s a mixed bag, with media publications alongside apps from Cisco, LinekdIn and Box.net.

We got a demo of the Box.net app, and it provides a glimpse into how the iPad changes the customer experience, compared to the iPhone or a laptop.

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We’re not sure how a customer may actually use the app. The Box.net team says it may have an impact when a salesperson brings it to a sales meeting. They say the “business meeting” use case is there. But we agree with them when they also say that there will be a lot of use cases they did not anticipate.

Box.net focused on taking advantage of the larger screen and so it can be used in a number of orientations.

Initally, people will have the capability to view and share documents . Eventually, we can expect to see some of the new features that Box.net introduced in the past few months, including its viewer for watching videos in the Box.net environment. That would be interesting if no other reason than to see an enterprise-focused company adopt HTML5, as the iPad does not support Adobe Flash.

In the next few weeks, the company will add more features for the app:

• Download files from Box.net to the iPad
• Upload files from the iPad to Box.net
• Work with iWorks suite
• Ability to open third-party apps to edit certain files
• Launch the Box.net Ipad app from third-party apps

The iPad is not designed for creating documents. It looks like it better for viewing and sharing more than anything else. The keyboard is a shift that will take time to adjust to. Is the keyboard going extinct? If so, we still have a long way to go with the multi-touch experience.

The app is available for free from the App Store on the iPad or at www.itunes.com/appstore/.

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What are the security issues with the iPad and how is it suited as a device for developing enterprise scale applications?

Those are the questions we posed to Ken Westin, the founder and CEO of ActiveTrak. Westin is a a security expert. His company develops a software and a service to track the location of a device if lost or stolen. In June, the company is introducing an enterprise version of its technology that will also go by the name ActiveTrak.

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The iPad will become a device that we will undoubtedly see in the enterprise. It fits into the same space as a smartphone or social computing technology, applicable to personal and work life. Neville Hobson on the NextWeb cites a survey by Sybase about the interest in smart phones for the workplace and its correlation to the iPad.

But Westin says the iPad does have its own set of limitations that makes it an issue for development of enterprise security grade applications:

• The iPhone and iPad software has built-in PPTP, IPSec, Cisco VPN software. But more companies are moving to SSL VPN, which is not supported by the iPad. In time, though, a client should be developed for the product.
• The device may be able to access the domain, however it is different from being a domain member as an administrator cannot manage it, enforce group policies or push patches or apps to it.

Westin is supported by other security experts who cite Apple’s lack of interest in security issues:

“The general consensus is that Apple continues to do only the absolute minimum to address enterprise security and supportability requirements,” noted Andrew Storms, Director of Security Operations for nCircle. `We haven’t seen any new enterprise iPhone security features from Apple since the summer of 2009 when they introduced their new hardware level encryption, which was almost immediately subverted. This is not the kind of behavior security professionals want to see in vendors.’

Recent events seem to illustrate that point. Security researches were able to compromise a fully-updated iPhone 3GS at the recent CanSecWest Pwn2Own competition. Storms warned me “If the iPad has the same OS as the iPhone then enterprises are going to be even more concerned about the data on this device.’ “

Westin said it is the background processing in particular that makes the iPad less appealing for ActiveTrak. For instance, its application runs in the background on an Android device. An iPad, and for that matter an iPhone, does not provide that capability.

His company does provide a free application for the iPhone. It’s free but it can only be activated if someone turns it on. To maneuver around the issue, Westin said they disguise the app button as a Safari icon, which activates the application. That’s when the tracking starts by triangulation techniques using WiFi and GPS.

Westin is a fan of Apple. He uses a MacBook Pro. He says developer tools are better on the iPhone and it has a great community. But, Apple wants it all. It controls the hardware, the software and the content. That’s a concern for the enterprise that wants to adopt the iPad. Such control over content is a problem as it gives Apple the power to wipe an application off a device without permission. That may seem unlikely in an enterprise setting but the possibility does lead to hesitation.

Further, Apple may make great high end products for consumers but it does not have the equivalent of a Blackberry server that can control the device and its content. Instead, the individual must have a MobileMe account. This can become a coordination nightmare for IT if the enterprise has 5,000 people who need an iPad.

Westin said ActiveTrak will wait until the iPad platfrom opens up more before developing.

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Alfresco Software reported record revenues today, providing a signal that open-source technologies are a top choice for the enterprise as the economy moves out of the recession and cloud computing becomes more prevalent.

Alfresco reported both record fourth quarter earnings and record revenues for 2009. Growth is up 61% compared to last year. We look at these results with a grain of salt but in Alfresco’s case it increased its staff 29 percent and also added 300 customer, including companies such as Cisco, Merck and the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development.

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In an interview today, Alfresco’s Ian Howell said the growth is coming from companies making the switch from document management platforms. Most of these document management companies have been acquired. And since most of those acquisitions, the market has changed. Open-source content management systems and Sharepoint have disrupted the market, providing a web oriented alternative to document-based, enterprise applications.

The customer is also adapting to an open-source culture. Before, a customer would ask: Do i get source code? Do you support it or do I have to go the forums? Do you scale in an enterprise?

Now, customers ask; How do I roll out? Do you offer 24/7 customer support?

The infrastructure is there. The ISV market and partner networks for open-source companies is growing as are content applications for open-source enterprise technologies. Service organizations are a core part of the open-source ecosytsem.

Further, how can proprietary technology have any role in a cloud environment? It’s the economics that drive open-source adoption in the cloud. That factor alone is drawing the enterprise to open-source.

And that means a bright future for open-source enterprise technologies from companies like Alfresco.

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This SAP story is getting a bit more interesting. Today we sat in in on a call with its team over at StreamWork, the new collaboration, SaaS service, previously known as 12Sprints.

Dave Meyer lead the discussion. For the first time, at least for us, he helped crystalize how SAP will extend its relevancy. Meyer and his team were joined by StreamWork partners — a curious mix of companies that include Scribd, Evernote and Box.net, not exactly the trio you’d expect to show up as partners with SAP.

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The story is not entirely without its bumps. We found a few but that’s not so surprising. We had trouble accessing the platform using a Google Chrome browser. It worked fine in Firefox.

You can make fixes bit easier in a SaaS environment. Feedback comes in, the code gets a touch up and a new change is made. That’s a bit of a different approach for SAP. It leads to the possibility that SAP is shifting its efforts by using a SaaS platform as a window to its deep back end, specifically Business Objects.

SAP is taking an open-source approach. It integrates with Google Open Social and can pull in data from third-party source using RESTful web services.

Google Open Social serves as a platform for tools that can be used within the framework of the StreamWork product. For example, an OpenSocial gadget to do polls may be used to get quick answers for team members.

That’s one way to be relevant n a new age of web-oriented technologies and continued emergence of forceful, open-source competitors, both on-premise and the cloud.

The direction does seem right. the StreamWork platform could serve as a front end to the enormous SAP program libraries that companies keep on-premise. For now, though, the integration is relatively simple and not yet really defined. We received this statement from SAP after the call when we asked about access to SAP applications through StreamWork:

“People will begin to see some initial integrations SAP’s Developer Network, which should preface some additional capabilities to come. While we can’t share granular plans, SAP has full intentions to integrate StreamWork into existing business applications. Users should see these developments over the next year. It also is up to customer feedback to prioritize which comes first, SAP has many integrations in the works and will determine which to pursue based on customer need.”

But the philosophy seems correct.

But how do Scribd, Evernote and Box.net fit in?

In a web-oriented world, static files can be a glut, obstructing the work flow. Scribd serves as viewer for accessing those important documents that may be deep in the enterprise but are still largely relevant.

Evernote is one of those products that is pretty much designed for the individual, not the enterprise. It’s for taking notes, pictures or any item that a community member wishes to post into a StreamWork activity.

Box.net provides the storage capabilties for documents that can be shared with different groups. Folders store documents that can be uploaded and shared within a real-time environment.

We spent some time using the StreamWork platform today. It is designed to drive business decisions. It’s not for playing around. This is definitely its differentiator. You can see as a collaborative service and the potential deeper SAP environment.

The story is coming together. The product is in its early stages. We’ll now see how it does fits with the rest of the vast SAP applicaton suite.

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In the past few weeks we’ve seen more references to FourSquare as a potential enterprise tool. The discussion represents an emerging law of Enterprise 2.0 Inevitably, a consumer trend in the social technology space will start to seep into the business world.

Hutch Carpenter of Spigit says it is a two-year lag before the enterprise adopts a social computing trend. He writes that wikis emerged in 2002 as a consumer tool and by 2004 came into the enterprise. Social networking emerged in 2006 and by 2008 had made its way into a business context. Microblogging hit in 2007 and by 2009 it became a central part of the Enteprise 2.0 suite.

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And so as the social concept of location based networks emerges in 2010, Carpenter’s bet is that we will see location based networks arrive into the enterprise by 2012. For reference, Spigit is an idea management platform. It is referenced by Dennis Howlett in the comments of Mark Fidelman’s CloudAve post. He cites Spigit as a company that could potentially enable this capability.

“If i’ve understood you correctly what you are suggesting sounds fine in theory but i’d prefer solutions like Spigit which do a very good job of surfacing peer reviewed ideas but using algorithms that avoid the inevitable gaming problem.”

Using Carpenter’s theory, here are some additional possibilities we can think of:

• IT Admins may have control over who is able to post to their location and in what context.
• Location-based systems will be required for some jobs. Permissions will be controlled by a business manager or IT administrator.
• A new generation of location-based applications will integrate with microblogging platforms.
• Web-oriented dashboard environments will provide live updates for managers to get an immediate view of their team with updates that are filtered to different communities based on the employee’s work role.
• Foursquare and Gowalla will be important for adoption but the first dominant player will probably be a new company or a company with an understanding of the importance of location-based systems.

These outcomes do seem plausible. In the current generation of Enterprise 2.0 applications, we see the emergence of similar trends. IT Admin is becoming a basic requirement for cloud-based, collaborative applications that serve the enterprise. We could name everyone here but just look at the latest crop of new arrivals. Both Novell’s Pulse and Status.net make this requirement standard in its microblogging applications.

How location based networks affects the way we view employees will become one of the most important issues in this brave, new world.

Enterprise data, bound together by data analysis, may become such a tightly woven fabric that recommendations can be made at each check-in. Suggestions about work habits may become part of the network. How we view our basic civil liberties will be challenged. But in the end, we’ll keep looking out two years, waiting for the next consumer wave while managing the reality of working in a transparent universe.

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In our poll last week, we asked: “Does it Really Matter How Cloud Computing Is Defined?” This week, we want to know: “Is Oracle a cloud company?” The questions have some relationship as how we defien cloud computing has some impact on the way we view a company and its overall vision.

As for the overall debate, most of our respondents to last week’s question agreed with the RedMonk team on this one. The number one response :

“It’s simple. Just think of cloud computing as servers, middleware and apps.”

The interest in this topic is shifting. About 100 or so people responded to the poll, compared to past polls that have had more than 1,000 votes. Maybe the more legitimate question should be: ” Does it NOT matter at all how cloud computing is defined?”

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The reality: Cloud computing gets enough attention that relevant information about a particular interest is readily available to understand the basics. There is still plenty of demand for information about cloud computing. We’d say far so more than how to define it. That view is reflected in our poll. People want to get on to the work at hand.

Still. the question elicited a number of comments on our post, looking deeper at the intrinsic aspects of how we view the abstract nature of what cloud computing really means. Sam Johnston offered a definition developed by some fellow Wikipedians. From our post:

“Virtualisation is also not intrinsically linked with cloud – you don’t see cloud providers like Facebook, Google & Twitter using it. Most of the noise about virtualisation is (unsurprisingly) coming from vendors selling virtualisation hardware and/or software.
It’s also important to include products above (e.g. Android, ChromeOS, CloudPlug, etc.) and below (e.g. Cisco UCS, 3tera, VMware vCloud, SGI CloudRack etc.) the well accepted 3-layer stack if we’re to have a functional taxonomy – that is, one capable of classifying all the items in scope – without polluting the top (application) and bottom (infrastructure) layers respectively. That’s why I now use a 5 layer stack to explain cloud computing:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cloud_Computing_Stack.svg In answer to your question about definitions, I think it is important and have spent the last few years trying to get to the bottom of it. This is the best I’ve been able to come up with so far (with the help of some fellow Wikipedians):

`Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software and information are provided to computers and other devices on-demand, like a public utility. ‘ “

This week our attention turns to Oracle: “Is Oracle a Cloud company”” It’s a fitting question in some respects, considering what we explored last week and the unclear message coming from Oracle.

Oracle will release a re-engineered version of Fusion in the second-half of 2010 as a hybrid platform, available on-premise and in the cloud. Information Week pulled this quote from Larry Ellison’s call last week to report Oracle’s quarterly results:

“So we’ll be delivering those applications both by selling the software directly, kinda the old way of doing it, which is still the most popular, by the way; we’ll be selling the Fusion applications integrated with our hardware–our servers and our storage and our networks; and we’ll be selling it on the cloud.” He later added, “our cloud or somebody else’s”.

So the question is out there. Where does Oracle stand? Is it a cloud computing company?

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